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Albert Brewer
|birth_place=Bethel Springs, Tennessee |death_date= |death_place= |party=Democrat |spouse=Martha Farmer |profession=Lawyer |residence=Birmingham, Alabama |religion=Baptist |order2= 21st |office2= Lieutenant Governor of Alabama |term_start2= January 16, 1967 |term_end2= May 7, 1968 |governor2= Lurleen Wallace |predecessor2= James B. Allen |successor2= Jere Beasley }} Albert Preston Brewer (born October 26, 1928) is an American politician who was the 47th governor of Alabama from May 7, 1968, until January 18, 1971. Life and political career Brewer was born in Bethel Springs, Tennessee. He attended the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa and was a member of the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity. Prior to his election as the 21st Lieutenant Governor, he served three terms in the Alabama House of Representatives from Morgan County from 1954 to 1966. During the last of these terms, 1962 to1966, Brewer, at age thirty-four, became the Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives, the youngest person in state history to hold this post. In 1964, Speaker Brewer and later U.S. Senator James B. Allen, then the lieutenant governor, were among the unpledged presidential electors on the Alabama ballot. They lost to the Republican slate committed to Barry M. Goldwater. No electors pleged to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson were permitted on the Alabama ballot. While national Democrats balked over Johnson's exclusion, most supported the unpledged slate, which competed directly with the Republican electors. As the The Tuscaloosa News explained, loyalist electors would have offered a clearer choice to voters than did the unpledged slate.The Tuscaloosa News, reprinted in The Birmingham News, September 5, 1964 Originally an ally of George Corley Wallace, Brewer was elected lieutenant governor in 1966 without opposition in the general election when Wallace's wife, Lurleen Burns Wallace, was the Democratic nominee for governor. While lieutenant governor, he was acting governor for a portion of one day while Governor Lurleen Wallace was out of the state for more than twenty days for medical treatment. When this constitutional provision became operative, Mrs. Wallace was immediately rushed back into the state. ; Alabama Senator John J. Sparkman is at center]] When Mrs. Wallace subsequently died in office in May 1968 and Brewer became governor, he took over direct management of the state and did not solicit input from George Wallace. Wallace was in the midst of his bid for the presidency under the American Independent Party. Thus, Brewer began to work to be elected as governor in his own right in 1970. In this effort, he gained an important ally in U.S. President Richard M. Nixon, who had defeated Wallace in the 1968 presidential election and who sought to neutralize Wallace as a potential adversary in 1972.Kornacki, Steve (2011-05-09) Rick Santorum and the problem with the "loser" label, Salon.com Brewer's 1970 gubernatorial campaign, however, was revolutionary in many respects. Although earlier in his political career he was regarded as a conservative segregationist (but not a race-baiter),http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838349,00.html Brewer refused to engage in racist rhetoric and courted newly-registered black voters. He hoped to build a coalition of blacks, educated middle-class whites, and working-class whites from northern Alabama, traditionally a more liberal part of the state. He unveiled a platform calling for more funding for education, an ethics commission, and a commission to revise Alabama's 1901 state constitution, which had been deliberately framed to disenfranchise blacks and poor whites.Rogers, William Warren, et al. Alabama: The History of a Deep South State. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994, 576. Brewer led Wallace in the Democratic primary but failed to win an outright majority. He then faced Wallace in a runoff. Running openly against the "black bloc" vote, Wallace slurred Brewer and his family.Rogers, 576 Wallace narrowly won the Democratic runoff. Wallace was unopposed in the general election. Post-gubernatorial life After years of private law practice, Brewer served as Distinguished Professor of Law and Government at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law. He currently teaches a course on Professional Responsibility at the Cumberland School of Law. He has also been an active leader with the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform since 2000. Honors Albert P. Brewer High School in eastern Morgan County is named in honor of Brewer. The school opened in 1972. Its patriot mascot is named Preston, Governor Brewer's middle name. Notes External links * Albert Brewer's biography from Cumberland School of Law website Category:1928 births Category:Living people Category:Members of the Alabama House of Representatives Category:Governors of Alabama Category:Lieutenant Governors of Alabama Category:Alabama lawyers de:Albert Brewer fr:Albert Brewer la:Albertus Preston Brewer pl:Albert Brewer fi:Albert Brewer sv:Albert Brewer